Existing and Exiting
by The Exile
Summary: Giygas is defeated but Poo does not return to his body and nobody knows how to bring him back. Poo had never really understood the purpose of his Mu training until now.
1. Chapter 1

Existing and Exiting

Dr. Andonuts looked at the four lifeless figures on the floor.

Their faces were blank, like dead screens, less life in their eyes than dolls. They had no consciousness at all. It had all been transferred into the cyborg bodies that he himself had created, along with the Phase Distorter that had carried the four robots to the otherwise unreachable one time and place where they could fight Giygas – the Cave of the Past, ten years ago.

One of the bodies belonged to his son, Jeff. When he first learnt that his son was on the quest to save the world, the Doctor hadn't even recognised him. It wasn't because he was a bad father or something, no matter what people kept saying. Boys grew and changed a lot in the space of five years. He looked nothing like he did last time Dr. Andonuts saw him. Another, the female, was the one who had sent the strong telepathic signal to his son and led him to the other side of the world to rescue her. Her psychic powers were incredibly strong, stronger than the most potent ever recorded by the Council of Paranormal Research. The boy in the striped shirt and shorts (he had insisted on bringing his red cap with him while he was in the robot body) was her companion, apparently the one destined to defeat Giygas. Dr. Andonuts did not believe in such unscientific nonsense as destiny and prophecies but he recognised Ness' strength and skill in battle.

Then there was the fourth one. Dr. Andonuts had not met the fourth one before at all and knew very little about him. In fact, he couldn't even remember the boy's name. Ah yes... Poo. A more ignorant person would have laughed at the connotations but Dr. Andonuts was fluent in Dalaam, as well as ten other languages, and knew that the name 'Poo' was a title of royal ancestry in their language. Poo was very unassuming and quiet, seeming to be content to defer to Ness in all matters, despite being a Prince. Poo's reaction to the news that he would have to transfer his spirit into a robotic body, possibly without being able to return, was different to that of the other children. He was just as shocked but he had acted as though he had been expecting it to come, rather than like someone encountering a new threat. After that, he had accepted his fate almost straight away. The other three had spent a long time debating amongst themselves and asking Dr. Andonuts if there was any other way. It had been Poo's stoicism that inspired them with the courage to take that final step.

* * *

"If Poo can do it, I can do it." Ness had said, "I'm stronger than Poo."

"This isn't just about being strong, Ness." said Paula, "It wouldn't matter how strong you were if that machine failed. You would just die. Your mind wouldn't be in your body any more."

"Nothing you can do." repeated Poo, "And you would die of your own free will. Just as if someone had asked you whether you wanted to die, and you said okay."

"Are you okay, Poo?" asked Paula. Poo normally never spoke, "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

Poo nodded, "The longer we deliberate over this, the more difficult it will be. It must be your decision and you must decide with absolute certainty. I already know I'm going in. It is my destiny."

"Its my destiny to fight Giygas. But I'm not convinced this is going to help me win." said Ness, "No offence, Jeff, but your father's machines go wrong all the time."

"None taken. Its entirely true." said Jeff, shuddering at the memory of his last voyage in the Sky Runner, "But they've never killed any of us yet."

"Only because they haven't been actively keeping any of us alive." said Ness.

Poo shrugged.

"Well, this is the way I'm going to take. I won't fight this battle without you. My destiny is to fight alongside you, not to win this battle by myself. So I'll wait for you to turn up, whichever other way you find. Because you will face Giygas, Ness, and you will win."

* * *

"You could have warned me about that!" Poo gasped. He stared at his arms and legs, hardly able to believe they were still there. The pain was completely gone. That in itself felt wrong – to go from unbearable physical and mental agony to being completely unharmed and lucid. He felt like a sleepwalker who had been disturbed. His world now and a second ago did not match. He had a terrible hunch that, at some point in the future, all the stages in-between were going to hit him at once and he was going to be violently sick and then collapse into a gibbering wreck. He hoped it wouldn't happen in view of his Master.

"Ah, but then it wouldn't have been a challenge." said the Star Master, a stern look on his face, "Your Trial had to be proportional to the level of danger you'll really be in, once your quest starts. The Enemy won't give you any warning before it attacks."

"What kind of enemy can do... THAT?" he demanded.

"You've never seen Giygas. You'll understand, once you do." promised the Master, "Trust me, that was the level of pain you'll have to be prepared to endure if you wish to defeat him."

Poo didn't want to think about encountering the same thing but for real. He changed the subject, "I'm okay now? None of it was real?"

"I have no wish to incapacitate you before you set off on such an important quest." the Star Master said.

That was partly the reason why Poo hadn't wavered. He didn't believe that the Ancestral Spirit would really break his legs. Losing his legs would stop him travelling, stop him fighting, ultimately give him almost no chance to succeed at his quest. It was probably a hypothetical question – what was worth more to him, his destiny or his legs?

The next moment, when he felt the unseen tension on his legs tighten and tighten until he was sure his bones couldn't bear the strain, then kept tightening, when the agony like burning knives shot through his tendons, when he felt his legs lie limp and useless at unnatural angles, he knew it hadn't been a rhetorical question.

He remembered the moment he knew he was taking enough damage to kill him. He could actually feel each system shutting down in order. He had known this much pain before, when he had fallen to an enemy and was certain he was going to die. Except that time the Star Master intervened to save his life, he had been healed and was ready to fight again the next day. This time, he was expected to die, and to calmly accept that he was going to die, in the course of a training exercise. It was the way the spirit kept saying 'is that okay?' that was beginning to scare him. If he was in battle against a monster that was strong enough to break his arms and legs, he wouldn't have been even vaguely scared to fight it.

It had been nothing compared to losing his senses. He knew, with a horror on the very edges of his mind, that he would never see again. Even the grotesque face of the spectre in the celestial expanse. Then it had taken his ears, too, so he couldn't even hear it speaking to him. It was communicating with him telepathically somehow. He was alone in the darkness, never to communicate with another human being again. It cut off his tongue so he couldn't talk. He couldn't even answer back when it told him that it was going to take his mind, the last and the only thing he had, and leave him in utter darkness forever... He had been given a choice, each time, to turn back. Now, when it all made the least sense, when he was about to sacrifice the one thing he couldn't give up under any circumstances, he had the choice taken away from him again.

"It felt real." said Poo, "How can something feel so real and yet be an illusion?"

"Surely after five years of meditation, Poo, you know what a powerful effect the mind can have on the body." said the Star Master, "If that wasn't so, you wouldn't have survived the ideal at all. Only someone with great mental discipline could have endured that much without going insane or having a heart attack due to imagined physical trauma. You've passed your test, Poo."

"I'm never just ACCEPTING that again." said Poo as he stood up, "If it happens, I'll be fighting it every step of the way."

"Even if that's not the way to win?" asked the Star Master.

Poo thought about this. He couldn't think of any kind of battle you won by having all your limbs broken, your eyes put out, your tongue cut off and then your mind destroyed. Except perhaps a contest to see who could lose the fastest.

"I'm not surrendering my mind." he said.

"You may not have the choice." replied the Star Master.

* * *

"What do you mean, the machine's not working? Poo's still not back!"

"There's some kind of massive power fluctuation." said Dr. Andonuts, "It could have been a backlash of negative energy from Giygas' death throes, or that some of the psychic power you were throwing around got into the machine. There was enough of it to actually cause the meters to explode. What exactly were you doing in there? Or maybe the machine just couldn't handle transporting all four of you there and back again. Both matter transfer and time travel are new sciences..."

"POO'S STILL NOT BACK!" yelled Paula, the expression on her face sterner this time.

"I'll repair it this instant! I promise!" said the scientist. Jeff and Orange Kid were already working on the machines but they couldn't do much without Dr. Andonuts. He was the only one who really knew exactly what the machine did. Ness sat over Poo's motionless body, using PK Healing Omega over and over again. The Mr. Saturns who weren't on the scientific team had formed a production line from the store to the clearing and were passing Ness refreshments so he didn't have to move to replenish his psychic energy. Two of them tried to force Lifenoodles down Poo's throat and were shooed away by Paula.

"We won't let you die." she promised Poo. Then she sat down and began to pray.


	2. Chapter 2

Poo watched the souls of his companions depart from Giygas' realm.

He had never seen a soul before. The Star Master had, of course, but he had never described it to Poo. He just said 'You wouldn't understand me if I tried to explain. You have to be dead to see them, anyway.' Poo had pointed out that the Star Master wasn't dead. He just told his disciple to shut up and concentrate on his lessons.

Poo wondered if he was dead. He didn't feel dead. He didn't think his companions were, either. He could sense life energy – you can't use PK Lifeup if you can't sense life energy – and he had been left with some at the end of the battle, as had the other three. They had won the battle. Giygas was destroyed. Some tiny motes of red static still floated around in the void like the last dying embers of a forest fire dancing in the night sky. The horrible distorted noise was gone except for a very faint crackle.

They weren't dead. They had just left. Gone back to their own bodies, probably. Except that Poo hadn't left.

He tried to run forwards and discovered that he couldn't move. He realised that he not only couldn't move, he hadn't even performed the action of trying to move. When he thought he tried to see why, he hadn't done that, either. He wasn't in a physical body any more. He briefly remembered that his robot body had been very badly damaged. He didn't know anything about machines but it looked like it was about to stop working, judging by how many component parts were falling off it. It had made the battle difficult, not being able to feel the pain that told a warrior how badly damaged they were and how much danger they were in, whether they should be on the offensive or defensive. He imagined that his body must have stopped working without him realising it.

He couldn't move without a body. However, he still had his mind, obviously, or he wouldn't be thinking about whether he had a mind or not. There was one thing he could still do if he had a mind.

PK Teleport Omega, he thought to himself.

* * *

All the sensors on the machine went dark at once. It made a low whining sound, then stood still.

"I can't turn it back on. I've lost all power to it." said Dr. Andonuts, "I think a vital component must have been fried."

"Then replace the component!" yelled Jeff, "Rebuild the machine from the ground up! Find a new power source!"

"That would take a long time. I doubt the poor boy would survive for such a long time outside his body." Dr. Andonuts looked over at Poo's body. Ness lay next to it, completely psychically exhausted, still mouthing the words 'PK Healing Omega' in his fitful sleep. Even the infamous Saturn Valley Own Brand Coffee couldn't keep someone awake for 24 hours solid while they were trying to use psychic healing so advanced that it bordered upon actual resurrection. Dr. Andonuts had ordered the Saturns to stop feeding him the stuff, as it was likely to kill Ness as well at the rate he was going.

Paula, on the other hand, hadn't stopped praying. It didn't appear to be an activity that used up energy. She didn't even look hungry. Dr. Andonuts decided not to bother her, as he wasn't sure whether it was safe to disturb someone who was praying. Prayer was an alien concept to him.

"We have to try." said Jeff, "Even if there's an infinitesimal chance that he'll survive, we mustn't abandon him. What if he's alive in there without a body? Forever? Its not so far off what happened to Giygas!"

"I doubt that'll happen." said Dr. Andonuts, "But if you want me to work on a better Phase Distorter, I will do so. Its my duty, if only to prevent such a thing happening again the next time somebody needs to use a Phase Distorter. I'll allow you to work on the project as my assistant, if you'd like. You've proven yourself a capable enough scientist."

"Thank you, father. I... I wish I could be more grateful. But I can't be happy. Not with Poo..."

"Do go and check that Ness is definitely alive, will you?" Dr. Andonuts said, turning away from his son. He didn't like watching people cry. He had no idea how to deal with it.

"I'm going to put the emphasis on safety, this time." he said to nobody in particular, "When I make my new improved Phase Distorter Mark 4. I'm going to concentrate on developing the life support systems to the extent that they can handle taking a living thing back in time. I'll improve the toughness of the outer hull so that it can survive journeys through time without being breached and endangering the lives inside it. It will be so well defended that it absolutely will not open unless the outside environment is safe."

"Um... I can see a few problems with that alrea..."

"Absolutely safe." repeated Dr. Andonuts firmly, interrupting Apple Kid. He already had ideas. He looked around for something to sketch them on.

* * *

_I'm not surrendering my mind._

He had lost count of the number of times he'd told himself that. Time was meaningless in the void. This dimension had existed for one reason, and one reason only – to contain Giygas. He had a theory that Giygas may have even created the dimension himself using his phenomenal psychic powers, a gross perversion of the 'Magicant' that Ness had described to him. Now Giygas had been destroyed, he was the only thing in the entire Universe that existed. If he was right, the dimension might stop existing altogether after a while, its reason to exist no longer present. Poo would be erased along with it. He caught himself wishing that would happen, rather than the alternative of being trapped here forever, then suppressed the thought. Neither would happen. He wasn't going to lose hope. To lose hope was to lose his mind.

_I am NOT surrendering my mind._

Seeing as his mind was now the only thing of himself that was left, he might as well start using it. He had already tried several different psychic powers. None of them had worked. His psychic powers relied on there being something else in existence for his mind to manipulate, he realised. He couldn't use PK Fire if no oxygen existed in the entire Universe to burn. He couldn't use PK Teleport if he was in a dimension where his chosen destination didn't exist. All he could do was think. This left him a lot of time to think. He mostly thought about possible solutions to his dilemma but, once he had exhausted the possibilities (for now – he was sure he would think of some more later on) he thought about the nature of his psychic powers, of Giygas, of this dimension, Magicant, all the impossible things he had seen during his quest. He pondered the meaning of life for a while. The most popular theory in Dalaam was that the entire Universe added up to zero, that there was no meaning of life because life was just a very complicated kind of nothingness. That was what Mu literally meant: nothing. Or sometimes infinity. Jeff had told him once that infinity was what happened if you divided numbers by zero, and that you should never, ever ask a machine to do this. Poo also did not want to see what an infinite machine was capable of. He sort of imagined that it would be like the Devil Machine, but worse. Jeff had laughed and told him that he just meant it would break the machine.

_Poo..._

Poo paused his train of thought. That hadn't been his voice. It hadn't even been a voice in his head. Voices in his head were facets of his own consciousness really. He was self-aware enough to know that the new voice was external to himself.

_Poo, its Paula. If you can hear me, please respond._

_Paula, _he thought as forcefully as he could in the direction of the other voice, _Are you praying to me? Can you reach me at all? I'm alive but I can't get out on my own._

_I can't reach you. Its very hard to even speak to you. Poo, what do I have to do to rescue you?_

_I don't know, Paula. I really don't know._

_I'll keep on looking. I promise._

_I'll hold out until then. You don't have to rush, or endanger your life. _

_What do you mean?_

_This isn't part of your destiny. The Prophecy of the Chosen Four is fulfilled. _

_If its not my destiny... does that mean I can't win?_

_You're not destined to breathe, and yet you're doing that. What I mean is, you're not fulfilling a prophecy, you're helping out a friend. An immortal disembodied friend. I think I'm immortal, anyway. I can't think of anything that can conceptually harm me, except losing my mind. _

_Are you SURE you're okay? Sane people don't keep saying 'I'm not losing my mind' all the time._

_I didn't say I'm not losing. I said I'm not going to surrender. I can't see anything here that could hurt my mind, except for me._

_I never did understand how you think, Poo. _

_You haven't spoken to me much. I'm very happy that you can communicate with me. Having one person to talk to is much easier than being entirely alone. _

_I'll come and talk to you again, I promise. I'm tired now. And I need to tell Ness what's happened to you before he fries his brain trying to heal you. But if I can talk to you now, I can talk to you later._

_I'm not going anywhere. I think._

_Goodbye, Poo._

_Goodbye, Paula._

Poo knew that he was alone again. Paula's presence had given him a lot more to think about, including several new ideas for how to leave. He had a feeling he was forgetting something important about Paula.


	3. Chapter 3

The Star Master sat in the lotus position on top of the mountain and meditated.

He had been present in court when the three heroes had given the bad news to Poo's father. He had already sensed something wrong. He could sense his greatest disciple's mental signature without even having to leave Dalaam, the boy's mind was so strong. The Master had been secretly keeping an eye on him. It was Poo who was destined to save the world but there was nothing in the Prophecy that said he couldn't intervene. The Prophecy had also left open the possibility that the Chosen Four could fail and the world could be plunged into darkness. The Star Master would rather risk changing the course of destiny slightly by adding himself to the equation than let the world be destroyed. Now it was too late, though. There was no way he could have reached Poo in the final battle except through Paula's prayers and even if he had, he doubted he could have brought Poo back to this dimension. He was likely to have gotten himself stuck in Giygas' realm.

They had been told that there was a slight possibility of Poo returning at a later date. Poo hadn't actually been killed, they knew that much. While they didn't know what had actually happened to him, this meant that they also didn't know if it was permanent. The news didn't come as that much of a shock to them - it wasn't that unusual for a powerful Dalaam mystic to leave their physical body for an extended amount of time. They were usually back before they could do themselves any injury such as forgetting to eat or drink for too long but occasionally the other Masters would need to keep their body alive using their own psychic powers until they came back. It wasn't the same situation. The Star Master couldn't sense Poo's mind any more. If he had been simply astral travelling, the Master would have found him. He was somewhere much further away. Still, keeping a physical body alive was easy.

The boy called Jeff had told Poo's father that if they found themselves unable to keep him alive for any reason, he and his father were setting up some advanced life-support technology. They had been thanked but told that they would rather take care of him themselves. The King of Dalaam didn't like to let other nations interfere with his country's affairs. Letting such machines take care of Poo would have more serious political consequences than the innocent Jeff understood – it would mean either Poo couldn't reside in his own nation, putting him in indefinite exile and making Dalaam permanently in debt to Winters, or they would have to move these machines into Dalaam. The King didn't want to see Dalaam filled with machines and the noise, pollution and crime that seemed to follow the heavy industry in the bigger cities such as Fourside. He also didn't want Jeff experimenting on the Lightning Elementals in the Pink Cloud Shrine to try and make an alternative source of energy. It sounded like an utterly suicidal plan.

Since hearing the news, the Star Master came here every day to meditate, the highest spot in Dalaam, where he was closest to the Ancestral Spirits who dwelt in the heavens and his consciousness could soar. He let his mind expand further and further out, to every corner of Eagleland, Winters, Scaraba, even the Deep Darkness and the Lost Underground. As usual, he did not find Poo.

_What am I to do, _he thought into the void, _Ancestral Spirits, please aid me if you can._

To his mild surprise, he felt a mind stir, a mind far more powerful than his own, somewhere distant. The image of a swirling phantom face materialised in front of his third eye. The Star Master hadn't really expected an answer. He always found the Ancestral Spirits a little hard to predict and a little alien in their thinking. Most less experienced people in Dalaam found them plain eerie and didn't like talking to them at all if they could help it.

_You're looking for the missing son, _the Spirit projected into his mind,_ we know where he is._

_Can you bring him back?_

_We're closer to him than you are but we can't reach him. That dimension is sealed to us. It is a dangerous place to us._

_Its important to the future of Dalaam. There is no other heir. _

_Then maybe that dynasty has ended. Dalaam's rulership has changed hands before without any harm coming to the nation._

_Nobody in Dalaam is nearly as strong as Poo. Dalaam will not have a weak ruler._

_It is Poo's destiny for this to happen._

_Only that it was possible to happen. We can intervene to some extent. You know that. That's why you trained him to face this situation instead of just letting the void claim him. That's why we fought Giygas at all, even though he had already conquered the future._

_If we go there, there's a chance we will be lost. We might put Poo in danger, too._

_Giygas isn't there any more, if you're worried about that._ The Star Master remembered hearing stories from Poo about some kind of corrupted beings that were just like the Ancestral Spirits, living in the Lost Underworld. The Spirits were evasive when he tried to talk to them about the Evil Elementals. He imagined it was a matter of some shame to them, to let beings so powerful become destructive forces in the Universe.

_We weren't corrupted by Giygas. We were corrupted in the same way as Giygas himself was corrupted. There is other evil out there in the void. Pure evil._

_Then Poo is even more likely to be corrupted. He's only a human boy. Do you want to be responsible for the Crown Prince of Dalaam returning to us as the next Giygas?_

_We will make one trip. We will only open a small gate. Only enough for him to leave, if he still can, if he is strong enough and still sane. If he does not, we will leave and close the door behind us._

_I am confident that my pupil is strong enough to survive, _replied the Star Master in complete sincerity.

* * *

_I wonder how it will be for Pokey, _thought Poo.

_What do you mean?_

_He escaped with the Phase Distorter. I don't think its a safe machine to use. _

_Well, duh. You have to put your consciousness into a cyborg body and you might not get it back, and if someone travels back in time and steals your machine, you're stranded. It works about as well as any other of Dr. Andonuts' methods of transport._

_I meant apart from that. I don't think its a good idea to travel to other dimensions without knowing what you're doing. You could end up in another dimension like Giygas', except not have any Devil Machine to contain it, or at least not one you have any control over. Time travel is unsafe, too. You could cause all sorts of paradoxes. What if you change events in your own life?_

_Like killing your own grandmother by accident? _

_Even something less dramatic could cause a paradox. You could delay yourself by five seconds and miss something important that you were supposed to do. Its dangerous to even meet yourself. What if you accidentally existed at precisely the same point twice?_

_That sounds like it would be messy, _agreed Paula, _I'm not sure I'd even want that to happen to Pokey._

_Or you could end up in a recurring loop. What if you travelled backwards five years in time then found that you couldn't do anything to alter your timeline so that you didn't travel backwards again five years from then?_

_Well, we managed it._

_We're not Pokey. He takes all sorts of stupid risks. _

_So does Dr. Andonuts and we keep leaving him in charge of the machinery, _said Paula, her quality of thoughts vaguely amused, _Don't worry, though, Jeff doesn't leave him unsupervised when he's working on a way to bring you back. His son is much more sensible. Brick Road is helping as well, although to be honest, Brick Road makes Dr. Andonuts look sane._

_Say, Paula..._

_What?_

_I keep having these thoughts. They remind me of what happened when you were praying._

_You heard me praying? I wasn't praying to you!  
_

_No, but I felt some kind of energy._

_That makes even less sense! My prayer doesn't work like normal psychic powers! It can't be interacted with in the normal way!_

_I'm not saying I know how it works or anything. It still happened, though._

_What did you feel?_

_I'm not alone in having to go to this void because I'm not able to interact with the place I want to be. The other mind, though... it was in a different situation. Being in a physical body, but the body isn't in the right world, only the mind can get there. You're somewhere so far away that the world just feels like a dream to you..._

_You're talking about HIM? You spoke to him?_

_Not really speaking, just a small projection._

_Did you get close to us? Poo, that's dangerous! We were VERY far away! Whatever's on the other side of there is very wrong!_

_I was making sure that you were OK. It looked like you just got swallowed by the darkness. Something threw me back. It was very powerful. I agree with you that I shouldn't have gone there. I wasn't equipped, like you were. I think I almost went into a world that could have trapped me forever. I think it tried to hold me back. That's why I missed my chance to leave with you._

_It still doesn't leave me any clues as to how to get you back. I can't get you out with prayer. I can't manipulate physical objects. _

_The thoughts also said 'Its okay to go there as much as I can because its better than never being able to go there at all. Just that it exists makes me happy.'._

_But you can't go there at all._

_I'll never stop believing that there's a world I can go back to. I'll still never stop trying until I find a way back, _Poo reassured her, _I think there's someone else trying to talk to me._

_Oh. Who?_

_The Star Master, I think. He's been trying for several days now but he's been unable to reach me._

_I'd better let you go if you need to concentrate on talking to him._

Poo felt Paula leave. It made him sad but he also needed to talk to the Star Master. The old man was the wisest and most powerful person in Dalaam. If anyone could find a way for Poo to leave, it was his master.

_Master, please respond to this message if you can,_ Poo projected with all his mental strength.

Instead of the faint mental signal he expected, one that hopefully wouldn't just fail this time, something else happened. He couldn't see it any more than he could see anything else but he could tell what it was. Somehow it was happening at a frequency he could interpret.

A portal was opening up in front of him.


	4. Chapter 4

He sensed hostility and acted straight away.

They looked like the Ancestral Spirit but they weren't. Their outline was red, a _wrong _red, red like the status displays on Jeff's machines when they malfunctioned. The same red as Giygas' energy. The thoughts emanating from them were completely garbled, a seething mass of anger and malice. He remembered seeing them before now, in the Lost Underworld, but those ones weren't this powerful. He had suspected they were something to do with Giygas. He had sensed the Star Master's will earlier on. If these entities were threatening his Master...

They must have come in through that portal. It might also be a way out. If it connects to the physical world, he thought, I might be able to use my psychic powers again.

Just as he felt his mind connect with the portal and once again he was able to grasp onto the power all around him, he also sensed that the Evil Elementals were about to use some kind of attack on him. He threw up a psychic shield, then used Starstorm. Raw energy flowed through him and a maelstrom of celestial matter spun out of the portal, striking the Elementals and tearing into the fabric of whatever held them together. Four of them dissolved on the spot. Three others who had been trying to block his exit were thrown back. He saw a flash of something blue and several more of the Elementals were dragged back through the portal. There was a larger battle raging on the other side of the portal. It would serve as a good distraction.

PK TELEPORT! He projected the word with as much strength as he could muster, now augmented by the full force of his considerable psychic potential. When he emerged from the other side of the portal, he realised he could actually see the words, solid objects made of light, in front of him. They became more pronounced, more real. He thought he heard himself shouting out the words.

He couldn't leave quite yet. The spirits of his ancestors were still fighting off the Evil Elementals. It would be ungrateful and disloyal not to help them. If they were defeated, what would happen to Dalaam? He gathered energy for another Starstorm. It came to him more easily the second time. Five more of the Elementals disintegrated. Suddenly, he saw the Star Master standing beside him, his own phenomenal power reinforcing Poo's. It felt like he could channel the entire energy of the sky.

_You don't need to stay and help us. We have this under control, _a voice promised him.

_Are you sure?_

_We can close the portal now. We won't let anything in or out again. _

_What if anything else wants to get in? Someone else who is lost?_

_Do you know of anyone?_

Poo tried to think of how best to describe it to the spirit but he couldn't. He gave a mental shrug.

_If the time comes, we may have already met again, _he said.

_Yes, probably. You have to go back now, though. You still have a body. You have a life left to live. _

_I suppose I do_, the idea vaguely amused Poo. A life after a quest to save the Universe, after witnessing his own near total destruction. What was it going to be like?

Seconds later, he fell flat on his face in the most undignified way he could physically manage without his trousers falling down. He looked up to see what looked like the entirety of Dalaam watching him. He shrugged. It was a novel feeling just to be able to see and hear, to move his arms and legs.

_When I get there, _the voice had said, _I just want to feel the ground under my feet and know that its Eaglelandish soil._

_

* * *

_

"_Prince Poo! You're alive! You have no idea how worried I was about you!"_

It was Yumi. A beautiful girl with long black hair that she washed every morning in the river under the waterfall where Poo went to practise meditating. She looked especially striking in the pale blue kimono she wore. He saw Noriko, her features a little childish but in a way that just made her endearing; Satsuki, not particularly attractive but fun to sit and talk with; Ito, who made the best rice dishes in Dalaam. He had missed the girls most of all.

"It was very rude of me to keep you all waiting. Please forgive me." he said, bowing.

"Poo, you're not going to go off with all the girls just as we have you back! You have matters of state to attend to! You almost caused a diplomatic incident with Winters!" That was his father, of course.

"Your Highness, please forgive my pupil. He's undergone more than you realise." The Star Master had just finished levitating himself down from the peak of the mountain. "What did you experience, exactly? Tell me, I'm fascinated."

"Star Master, I've decided. I think I would like to train to become Star Master after you. If you'll accept me as a full disciple." he said, bowing even more deeply, "I believe I am destined to become an Ancestral Spirit after my death. It is important that I prepare as soon as possible for that moment."

"Is that so? Well, you shouldn't do so straight away. Such training will take up your entire life and you have duties to Dalaam as a Prince."

"That's why I must produce an heir as soon as possible." reasoned Poo, "So I have to meet girls, don't I, father?"

His father burst out laughing, "Its not as simple as that, son. If you think you can go around saying that in full hearing of all the girls, you definitely need more experience in life."

"Your friends were round asking for you yesterday." commented Yui, "You should tell them you're alive."

"Oh yes! Paula! Ness and Jeff, too!" said Poo, "May I visit them, father?"

"I suppose so." his father smiled, "But be back! No making me worry about you again!"

"I promise." said Poo. Then he ran off. All the crowds were making it dangerous to use PK Teleport.

* * *

Dr. Andonuts felt a little disappointed that he wouldn't have a use for his new machine.

He had nothing resembling a working prototype yet. It was to be expected, with such an ambitious project. He was amazed he was making so much progress as it was. The life support systems worked. It was also almost perfectly secure. Jeff threw Multi Bottle Rockets at it, Ness used PK Rockin' Omega on it, Brick Road's new improved Dungeon Man stood on it – nothing so much as scratched it and the simulation program running inside it showed that a hypothetical passenger would be completely unharmed. The only problem was, he couldn't get the damn door to open again. It had decided that opening the door was too big a threat to its imaginary passenger – the outside world was a dangerous place full of threats to their existence. No matter how often he tried – he was running out of resources to build the capsules, even though the prototypes were only as big as hamster balls, causing him to be very annoyed at the Animal Rights Committee for not letting him use actual hamsters – he could not fix this loophole in the programming without making the machine immediately stop protecting itself against all other threats. He was beginning to wonder whether it might be a good idea not to make Brick Road pilot the life-size prototype he was planning to build.

The other big problem was, he couldn't actually replicate the Phase Distorter. All of this was useless unless he could actually fit the capsule inside a Phase Distorter to make it secure enough to carry a living entity safely through space and time. Now there was no need to even use a Phase Distorter. Poo was fine. Pokey had physically gotten inside the Phase Distorter and used it to travel in time, so he was probably dead.

Still, it was best to keep on developing the machine. You never knew what might crop up in the future...


End file.
